


Until You Try

by Musyc



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: F/F, First Kiss, Humor, Lesbian Character, Millicent Bulstrode - character, POV Lesbian Character, Pansy Parkinson - Character, Sexual Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-10
Updated: 2011-12-10
Packaged: 2017-10-27 03:49:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/291313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Musyc/pseuds/Musyc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the latest in a series of bad dates, Pansy has a question for Millicent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Until You Try

Pansy swept into the cottage, the scent of honeydew perfume and whiskey following her. The combination tickled Millicent's nose and she sneezed as she closed the door. "Hi, Pansy," she said, tracking the scent into her kitchen where she found Pansy collapsed at the small table under the window. "Come on in. Make yourself at home. Tea?"

Pansy lifted her head off her arms and propped her chin in one hand. "I'm sick of men."

Millicent took that as assent and put the kettle on the hob. Her cat looped around her ankles with chitters and purrs as she poured milk into a bowl for him. She turned her back to the counter and leaned on it to watch Pansy light a long brown cigarette. "Who was it this time?" Millicent asked, a flick of her wand sending an ashtray in front of Pansy.

Pansy made a face, squinting through the smoke that floated toward the half-open window. "Blaise," she said, and ruffled her straight fringe with her nails. " _Such_ a waste of frilly knickers, let me tell you. 'We'll share an appetizer, Pansy, and only order off the left side of the menu.' For god's sake. At least Theo let me have filet mignon whenever I wanted, even if he did try to kiss me after eating mushrooms."

"I warned you about Blaise." Millicent took the whistling kettle off the hob and poured two cups of green tea. She set one in front of Pansy with the sugar bowl and took a seat across from her. "He's always been tight with his coins. Can't really blame him, though. It's his mum's money, and she had to fuck a _load_ of terribly ugly men to get it."

Pansy snorted and stirred three spoons of sugar into her tea. Her cigarette dangled from between two fingers and Millicent silently wagered with herself on how long it would take for Pansy to tap the cigarette into her tea and attempt to drink from the ashtray. Pansy shook her head and slumped over the table, her forehead in the crook of her arm. "I'm out of men, Mills. Blaise, Theo, Adrian, Lucien. I even went out with _Greg_ once, if you can believe it."

"Start over, then. Go back to Draco."

Pansy tensed and slowly lifted her head. She stared at Millicent through her fringe. "Right. The woman who tried to turn Potter over and the littlest Death Eater. Like I want rocks thrown through my window more than I get already. Besides." She crushed her cigarette into the ashtray and slapped her hand on the table. "He's with that Gryffindor bitch again. Pure-blood and Muggle-born, shacking up to show the world he's reformed. May they have a dozen little half-blood babies. I hope her arse gets fat and he loses his hair."

Millicent leaned back in her chair. "Watch the half-blood comments," she said, her voice level. Being a half-blood in their house at school had been a source of teasing, but her size and propensity when younger to hit first, warn never had meant most people only teased once. Still, it could rankle.

Pansy flicked one hand in the air, sighing. "Doesn't count. You're Slytherin." She blew across the top of her mug and slurped her tea. "So, that's that, then. All the vaguely attractive and worthwhile men our age. I've gone through them, and it turns out they're all bastards. So I'm sick of men. No more. I'm switching sides. Fetch me a woman, Mills. Set me up. My evening's free."

"One, it doesn't work that way." Millicent flicked her nail against her cup, both brows raised. "And two, even if it did, why would I be your source for birds?"

Pansy cocked her head. "Really? You have to ask?"

"What? I'm big, I don't wear gobs of paint on my face, and I haven't owned a skirt since I was six? That's your evidence?"

"Actually, it's because you spent more time staring at Tracey's tits than Draco did." Pansy pulled the collar of her dress out and peered at her chest. "What does she have that I don't?"

Millicent snorted. "Two more cups."

Pansy huffed and pushed her collar back into place. "That was padding."

"No, it wasn't." Millicent smiled at Pansy's expression. "Oh, believe me. I know. I didn't go on holiday to Greece by myself last year, and I can guarantee you, from very personal experience, those are real."

Drumming her fingers on the table, Pansy tossed her hair back. "Then, see? I was right. I was right, you're gay, set me up! How difficult is this?"

Millicent scooted her chair back as her cat pawed at her thigh to be let onto her lap. She scratched his ears and watched Pansy light another cigarette. "Tell me what you like in a woman, then."

Pansy blew smoke at the ceiling and drummed her fingers against her cheek. "No Hufflepuffs. No Gryffindors. Money, loads of it. Willingness to travel. Good family line. Tall. Blond. Slender."

Millicent laughed. "So, Draco with tits?" Pansy made a face at her and Millicent laughed harder. "Pansy, look. You're not interested in women. You never have been. You're angry with Blaise, you're lonely, and you're a little on the drunk side. That's all. You're going to be fairly embarrassed with yourself in the morning as it is, so let's nip this in the bud right here and not go any further with it. I can put you up in the spare room if you're capable of sleeping on linens that have less than three hundred threads per whatever the hell it is you go on about."

The flick of Pansy's hand was dismissive, but the pink flush on her cheeks told Millicent plenty. She shook her head and took the cigarette from Pansy to crush it out. "Come on, then. Off to bed with you."

Upstairs, Millicent took an extra pillow from the chest at the foot of the bed and tossed it on top of the three already waiting. She could hear Pansy gargling in the loo. "If you're trying to get rid of the taste of cigarettes, it would be smarter to just quit smoking."

"Tried that," Pansy said around a gargle. "Turned me bitchy."

Millicent snorted. That was a terrifying thought when she considered Pansy's usual levels. She turned down the bed and quickly brushed a bit of cat fur out from between the sheets. Pansy came out of the bathroom, tying a tighter knot in the sash of Millicent's spare toweling robe. "This is _soft_ ," Pansy said with an arch of her brows, her fingers stroking the front of the robe. "Where did you get it, Mills? I'm going to want a dozen for myself."

"It wouldn't come in your size." Millicent rolled her eyes at Pansy's look of confusion. "It's from a fat girl shop, Parkinson."

"Oh, Millie," Pansy said, her hands on her hips. "Why do you insist on calling yourself that?"

"Because that's what it is. This is me." She held her hands out at approximately the dimensions of her body, then pulled them in more than halfway. "And that's you."

Pansy sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed one of her feet. "You're exaggerating."

"I'm a realist. Look, if you think I'm putting myself down, you have the wrong end of it. I'm just saying what's what. I'm not ashamed of it. I have an arse that stops men in the street and the best tits to come out of Hogwarts in six hundred years. Doesn't bother me that I'm not your type." She winked in a deliberate tease. "Plenty of women like it."

Pansy ducked her head, her dark hair swinging across her face, and shuffled into the bed. She pulled the sheet up over her legs and smoothed it over her thighs, her fingers fluttering like leaves. "How would I know?" she asked in an unusually soft voice.

Millicent stopped in the middle of folding Pansy's discarded dress. She'd thought the temporary shyness in Pansy's look had meant the wink was too much teasing and resolved not to do it again, but that anxious flicker of Pansy's hands could mean something else. "How would you know what?" she asked cautiously.

"If I like women. I've never tried. Maybe I do."

Millicent let out a slow breath and put the dress on a chair. She sat on the edge of the bed facing Pansy. "Have you ever thought a woman was attractive? Ever thought 'fuck, that's a fit bird'? Ever turned around to watch one on the street? " Pansy's face was turning pink and Millie softened her voice. Pansy could be irritating as hell sometimes, but they were friends and she wasn't interested in being cruel that night. "Do you want to kiss one? Touch one? Does the thought of breasts get your heart racing?"

She flicked at her nails, watching Pansy from under her lashes. "Pansy. You've never been interested in women. You've dated plenty of men. I think you know where your preferences lie. Don't know why this question came up, but I'm pretty sure you're not a lesbian. Getting fed up with blokes for one night doesn't turn you gay, even if Blaise is an absolute little prick. And has a little prick from what I hear, so be glad the date wasn't worth staying the night with him."

Pansy stared at her knees beneath the sheet for a minute, then she lifted her head. She chewed on her lower lip as she met Millie's eyes. "I'm expected to date men, Mills," she said in a low voice. "My parents, my family--" She swallowed and looked away, her pale skin flushing to a deep burgundy. "But I've never liked it. Never liked them. But it's hard to break out of that."

She drew her legs up and wrapped her arms around her shins to rest her cheek on her knees, her face aimed at the wall. "I've gone through a lot of men, hoping the next one would work. That he'd do something for me, make me _feel_ something. It's never happened, not once."

Millie's first response was to reassure Pansy that she'd find the right man eventually, then she grimaced and shook her head at herself. How many times had she heard that very line before? "It's hard," she said. "I know. Believe me, I know." Sighing, she patted Pansy's arm. "Look, if you really want to give it a try, I'll see about setting you up with someone. There's this woman I know, Renée. She went to Beauxbatons, and she's just a couple of years younger than us. She's a florist in Mould-on-the-Wold. You're about her type."

Pansy shrugged her shoulders, her toes moving beneath the sheet. "Maybe." Slowly, she turned her head and looked at Millie again. "Don't know if I'd be comfortable going out with a stranger, though."

"It's never going to be comfortable until you give it a try." Millie stood up and went to the window, lifting the sash a few inches and propping a wooden dowel in the opening to keep it raised. When she turned around, she jumped. Pansy had left the bed without making a sound and stood right behind her. Millie raised her brows. "What? Don't want it open? I figured you'd be smoking at some point tonight or in the morning and I'd rather my linens didn't--"

Pansy reached up and touched her lower lip with one finger. Millie fell silent, looking into Pansy's eyes. There was a glint there she recognized, a determination that she'd seen a hundred times over the years. She wrapped her fingers around Pansy's wrist and pulled her hand down. "Pansy," she said in a wary tone. "You don't want to do this."

Pansy watched the movements of her lips as she spoke, then looked up to meet her eyes again. "I don't know if I'll like it," she said. "I don't know if this is what I want. But I _do_ know that I don't want my first try to be with a stranger. With someone I've never met before. Someone I don't trust."

"Good luck with that, then," Millie said, trying to make a joke. She wasn't against the idea, but she wasn't entirely keen on being an experiment. She'd had enough of that back in school with a couple of inquisitive Ravenclaws. "Slytherins don't trust anyone, isn't that the rule?"

"I trust you." Pansy settled both hands on Millie's shoulders, lips pressing together over and over as if she was warming them up. "Just.... Just let me try this, Mills. Please? I can't know until I try, right?"

Millie watched her face without speaking. Without breathing, it felt. She looked into Pansy's eyes, looking for the prank or tease or revulsion that she still, every time, expected. It wasn't there. Pansy looked nervous, looked uncertain, but most of all, she looked curious. Millie let out her breath and dipped her head, lowering so Pansy could reach without straining.

Pansy touched her cheek. Millie held still, waiting, and Pansy's mouth touched hers before pulling away immediately. Millie didn't move except to close her eyes, and Pansy tried again, lips brushing lips as soft as clouds blowing across a summer sky.

When Pansy drew back, her hands falling away from Millie's shoulders, she let out a shuddering breath that made Millie's pulse flutter. Millie opened her eyes to see Pansy standing still, eyes closed and mouth parted, one hand over her heart. "Well?" Millie asked in a whisper, almost afraid to break the silence.

Pansy smiled, slow and shy. It was an innocent smile, in a way that Millie hadn't seen on many women and that she'd never seen on Pansy. Pansy opened her eyes and her smile widened. "I felt something," she said in an awed voice. "Mills, that was the first kiss I've had in my life where I felt something. I want to do that again."

She stepped forward and Millie stopped her with a quiet laugh. Millie's cheeks were warm, and she felt an odd flutter in her chest, her heartbeat jumping around. "Good," she said. "Now you know. But let's wait to try it again, all right? One kiss after a night of drinking can be nice, but let's get you sober before you try more."

Pansy pouted at her, but let Millie guide her back to the bed. She curled up under the sheet, one hand beneath her head on the pillow. "I do want to try again," she said, touching Millie's arm.

Millie leaned over and kissed Pansy's forehead. "You'll have to buy me dinner first," she said. "I'm not _that_ kind of girl."

Pansy giggled and pulled the sheet up to her neck as she nestled down. "Thank you," she said, her eyes closing. "Maybe in the morning we can talk?"

Millie looked back at her from the bedroom door, one hand against her throat where her pulse was still wild. "Yeah." She felt her mouth curling in a smile. "We'll talk over breakfast."

She pulled the door most of the way closed and headed for her own bedroom, her thoughts in a whirl. Pansy wasn't someone she'd ever thought about like that, but she had to admit one thing. Pansy wasn't the only one who'd felt something new in that kiss. Millie wanted to try again too.


End file.
